Breast Cancer Death Rates Continue to Drop

Breast cancer mortality rates have continued to drop 2% a year, according to the latest statistics from the American Cancer Society.  Diagnoses also fell 3.7% annually, both because fewer women were on hormone therapy which could have triggered more cases and because 2% fewer women were getting mammograms, preventing diagnosis, according to figures through 2004, the most recent available.

Diagnoses fell most dramatically—4.8% annually—for those over 50, but remained steady for younger women and black women. "A woman today has a lower chance of dying from breast cancer than in decades," said an organization official, who cautioned that death rates for black women were still 36% higher than for whites in 2004. (Read more breast cancer stories.)